August 2007
Why Pete is the greatest player of all time
By Tom Gullikson
What makes Pete Sampras the greatest player in history?
I am a little biased because Pete is a great friend, and my twin brother, Tim, coached him.
But, in my opinion, it all starts with his service game. Without a doubt, he had the greatest second serve in the game --- ever. He was absolutely fearless, never afraid to go for the lines with his second serve.
Pete won his first Wimbledon in 1993, beating Jim Courier in the final. I had trained Courier for 10 days on grass in Florida before Jim went to England. Well, Pete won that final in four sets, and the average speed of his second serve was 100 mph. He double faulted only for times.
Courier said to me: "Jeez, Gully, I thought I played pretty well but it's hard to beat a guy who plays two first serves on every point for the entire match".
That's what separates Pete from anyone in the history of the game: The absolute quality of his second serve, the fearless approach he took to it, and the utmost confidence he had. He could disguise it, too. On the ad court, he would toss it over his head like he was going to hit a kick and then he would hit hard down the middle. He had some nice little tricks up his sleeve that he would perform on the big points.
Pete also really loved guys coming after him with nothing to lose. When you're ranked No. 1 in the world for six years in a row, you're the heavy favorite. The lower-ranked players had nothing to lose, so most would play high-risk tennis. They played very loose because they knew they were going to lose anyway. Why not just go for the shots and be aggressive?
Some guys wouldn't relish that challenge but Pete embraced it. He'd say, "I know I'm the favorite. I know that I play well. I should win. I enjoy being in this position to have these guys take their best shot at me."
That's a champion's mentality. You must embrace that No. 1 position.
Surprisingly, Pete was a little under-appreciated because he didn't show much emotion out there. People thought he was dull and boring. They thought he wasn't really human because he was so regularly great on a tennis court.
Tears & Titles
I think the moment that defined Pete's humanity was at the 1995 Australian Open, when we found out that my brother, his coach, likely had four brain tumors. Pete was playing Courier in the quarterfinal while I was flying Tim back home to Chicago for more medical tests.
Pete was down two sets to love and someone in the crowd shouted out, "Win it for your coach!"
Pete broke down and started crying. He couldn't stop. Courier came up and said, "Pete, if you can't finish this today, we can come back tomorrow."
Jim was being sincere, but I think Pete, at the time, thought he was being a little facetious. Pete ended up winning that match, hitting aces through the tears and emotion.
That moment humanized Pete in the eyes of tennis fans. It was the first time people saw that side of him. They saw it again at the 2002 U.S. Open as he rushed into the stands to find his wife, Bridgette, and give her a big hug.
You don't become a great champion without having a lot of emotion and lot of intensity on the court.
Great Competitor
Becoming a great competitor was one of the things Tim helped Pete with from the beginning. Back then Pete was most concerned about how he was striking the ball, but Tim told him, "Listen you're going to hit the ball a little bit different every day. It's just the nature of the game. You're one of the top two or three athletes on the tour --- you move great, you've got great hands, you can hit any shot in the book, you can play offense, you can play defense, you can jump."
"So on the days that you're not hitting the ball as cleanly as you would like, take the little white collar off the shirt, put the blue collar on and beat the guy with your athletic ability and your competitiveness, and not always with your shot-making."
That's the bottom line: You've got to find a way to get the "w." Pete was great at doing that.
Pete On Clay
The fact that Pete never won the French Open doesn't make him the best clay court player ever, but for people to say that he couldn't play on clay is ridiculous.
In 1996, the year my brother died, Pete reached the French Open semifinals. It was about three weeks after Tim passed away. His route to the semis was through three French Open champion --- Thomas Muster, Surge Bruguera and Courier. After that he had nothing left against Yevgeny Kafelnikov, who he nearly always beat. That was Pete's year to win the French, but he just ran out of gas.
People may not remember that Pete had won the Italian Open, but the fact he did proves he could play on clay.
The last time the U.S. won the Davis Cup, in 1995 when I was captain, Pete won two singles matches on clay and he won the doubles with Todd Martin. It wasn't without pain, though. After the first match he had full body cramps and we had to rehydrate him with an IV.
I sent him out for doubles the next day, and they won in straight sets. That was truly one of the great efforts in Davis Cup final history --- for Pete to go out on his least favorite surface and virtually carry us on his back to the Davis Cup title. It was a fabulous effort.
Pete vs. Roger
When you compare Pete to Roger Federer, you have to remember that Pete was beating champions. With all due respect to guys like David Nalbandian, Nikolay Davydenco and Andy Roddick, whom Federer plays regularly, Pete was beating multiple Grand Slam champions --- Boris Becker, Stefan Edberg, Ivan Lendl, Andre Agassi, and Courier --- to win his titles. Pete had to beat much better champion than those Federer has beaten.
If you look back at the people who played before Pete's time, they were playing when three out of the four majors were on grass. What would happen if the Australian Open and U.S. Open were still on grass? How many Slams would Pete have won? Would his Grand Slam title record be higher than the 14 he accumulated?
Consider that he won Wimbledon seven out of eight years. The only match he lost there in those years was against Richard Krajicek.
In my mind, if Federer is going to overtake Pete as the best ever, he is going to have to win 15 Grand Slams titles or win 14, including the French Open. That doesn't mean that I think Federer is better, it just means that when people measure this, technically that would displace Pete as No. 1.
However, I still firmly believe that Pete was beating much better players --- guys who were champions. In a one-match situation, I'd still put Pete's best tennis up against anyone in the world.